Forming a partnership with a host of companies -- AT&T, Best Buy, Verizon, Staples, Office Depot -- it will hold a cell phone recycling week through April 12. In 2008, the event -- Plug-In Partners -- collected 11 million cell phones for reuse and recycling.

"If you want to dispose of cell phones, we have partners," said
EPA
spokeswoman Latisha Petteway.

For obvious reasons, the EPA advises you to clear your old phone of all your personal information and remove your SIM card before recycling it. To learn more, go to the event's Web site at
www.epa.gov/cellphones
.

The EPA estimates that only 10 percent of the millions of cell phones sold each year get recycled properly.

Because they're potato-chip ubiquitous, it's easy to forget what's inside cell phones -- precious metals, copper, plastics. None of those things belong in the trash, in incinerators or in landfills.

The EPA points out that recycling cell phones conserves all those materials. That means less energy gets used in mining those metals. Less petroleum gets used making new plastics.

In turn, that means less air and water pollution and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

The EPA estimates if all the 100 million cell phones in the United States ready to be shut off for good were recycled properly, it would mean a net gain in energy that could power more than 18,500 U.S. households with electricity for one year.

Furthermore, if the phones are in good working order, their innards might not get gutted -- in some cases, cell phones get donated to non-profit organizations that are happy to get the not-so-latest model.

Petteway said the EPA has no clear idea what people are doing with their old phones now, or how they're getting rid of them. It only knows there are millions out there.